This background description is provided for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Unless otherwise indicated herein, material described in this section is neither expressly nor impliedly admitted to be prior art to the present disclosure or the appended claims
Local dimming is a technique used in some light emitting diode (LED) televisions (TVs) to improve the contrast ratio of an image, thereby producing a “darker” or “deeper” black color. To achieve local dimming, LED TVs may employ top-firing LEDs. Top-firing LEDs emit light in a direction that is perpendicular to a screen on which the image is displayed, each LED corresponds to a small portion of the screen, and may be individually dimmed or illuminated. Thus, portions of the screen may be dimmed simply by turning off the corresponding LEDs.
Employing top-firing LEDs in mobile devices may be impractical, however. With regard to mobile devices, thickness of the device is a consideration. The thickness of a device that uses top-firing LEDs may be appreciably greater than that of a device that uses other screen-lighting implements, such as-side firing LEDs. To reduce the thickness, therefore, mobile devices may be configured with side-firing LEDs. Conventional techniques to dim images displayed on a device with side-firing LEDs, however, fail to suitably improve the contrast of those images.